Kensuke Kondo, the newest member of SofBank, left Nichi-Ham for “the real reason”: “The most important thing is the number of years under contract” and “I am the newest member of Nichi-Ham, not myself.
Kensuke Kondo, who was the unquestioned No. 2 pitcher in the World Baseball Classic (WBC) and joined SoftBank this season as an FA transfer, is taking on his old team Nippon Ham for a three-game series.
Kondo hit .370 with NIHAM, where he played for 11 years, and he has a .370 batting average in all. He has a high on-base percentage of .413, thanks in part to his ability to pick the right four pitches. Kondo, who has also served as the president of the players’ union, exercised his overseas free agent (FA) rights acquired last season and signed a large contract with Softbank last December for an estimated total of 5 billion yen over seven years. However, money was not his main concern. A source in the baseball world with knowledge of the situation revealed the following.
I think Kondo wanted to stay with Nichi-Ham if he could. Tsuyoshi Shinjo, who has been in charge of the team since last year, prioritized the first-team lineup, including young and unproven players, so players like Kondo, who had a good track record, were pushed around in the batting order.
There were reports that Kondo’s reason for exercising his FA rights was that he was dissatisfied with the way he was used, but I heard that what Kondo himself was most concerned about was the length of his contract. As long as I am still an active player, I want to play as many years as possible. Softbank offered seven years, but Nichi-Ham offered four years. If Nichi-Ham had offered seven or eight years, the result might have been different. ……”
Last November 8, Kondo announced through Nichiham that he would exercise his FA rights. After that, five teams in the Pacific League, including SoftBank, Orix (which won the Japan championship), Seibu, and Lotte, fought over him, and it took more than a month until he held a press conference at SoftBank on December 14 of the same year. A source mentioned above continued, “He was going to try out for the Majors with SoftBank.
Orix was eager to fill the vacancy left by Masanao Yoshida, who had appealed directly to SoftBank to challenge the majors, and Seibu was eager to fill the vacancy left by Tomoya Mori, who had transferred to Orix as an FA player and would play for them starting this season. Softbank reportedly offered over 3 billion yen for 6 years, Orix 3 billion yen for 6 years, and Seibu 2.4 billion yen for 6 years. Although the focus tends to be on the amount of money, the length of the contract is longer than that of NIHAM, reflecting the wishes of the player.
After hearing these conditions, Kondo again sat down to negotiate with NIHAM, but even at that meeting, the length of the contract remained the same at four years. He was shocked by this. The contract offered by a baseball team reflects the team’s evaluation of and feelings toward the player.
